Developed pressure cell apparatus for measuring kinetics of mixtures of oxidizers with Al in terms of pressurization rate: Reaction of Al with Synthesis /source Oxidizer particle size (nm) (dP/dt) max (psi/µs) Fe 2 O 3 Aero-sol-gel200~ CuOSpray-pyrolysis KMnO 4 Spray-drying McCormick, Zachariah Signal conditioner Oscilloscope Pressure Sensor In-line charge amplifier Sample Nichrome Developed an aerosol-based sol-gel method for making metal oxide nanoparticles with high internal surface area and nanothermite metastable intermolecular composites

A nodal algorithm and software were developed to solve the aerosol general dynamic equation (GDE) with size-dependent surface tension Size-dependent surface tension for Al at 1000 K from molecular dynamics simulation: Including this variation allows more realistic simulations of nucleation, coagulation, and surface growth. McCormick, Zachariah (cont.)

Snapshots of MC simulation Aggregating nanoparticles in an evaporating aerosol droplet (initial number of solute particles 25,000; relative humidity 50%) McCormick, Zachariah (cont.) Monte-Carlo Simulation for Two-Component Aerosol Nucleation, Diffusion, and Coagulation time

Current directions of computations Parallel programming for larger-scale calculation Two-component 2-D code that accounts for viscosity local concentration nucleation growth of aggregated particles phase segregation and reaction McCormick, Zachariah (cont.) Experimental work in progress Using polystyrene-latex to synthesize porous oxidizer particles (CuO) with organized pores Studying the effect on nanothermite reactions of loading the oxidizer pore with nitromethane Synthesis of aluminum by thermal cracking of an alane aerosol.